ROME - Museums across Italy closed their doors Saturday and workers demonstrated in front of the Colosseum to protest plans by the government to privatize some of Italy's cultural treasures.
Does anyone else see the irony in this proposal? The Italian government spends millions of dollars a year trying to prevent the removal of antiquities from archeological sites by private individuals, claiming that all antiquities belong to the State, yet they now want to turn over these same antiquities to private individuals, for a price! When over the centuries did these antiquities convert from being buried private property to State property?
C.J. Scheiner
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Stained-glass panels looted during WWII return to Germany from Russia
FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany - A set of 14th-century stained glass windows that were taken by the Red Army at the end of World War II arrived back at their German home Saturday after being handed over by Russia's Hermitage museum. After a weeklong trip, a truck carrying the 111 panels in 22 boxes rolled into Frankfurt an der Oder, on the German-Polish border, to applause from local residents and a welcome by Culture Minister Julian Nida-Ruemelin. The panels form part of the altar at the city's Marienkirche, and were among the most sought after items for return by Germany because the church is marking its 750th anniversary next year. Both houses of the Russian parliament had passed a law providing for the panels' return from St. Petersburg in April. The panels, which once formed three large windows, are to be restored over the next two years in a workshop that has been set up inside the church. Some of them are badly damaged. The Brandenburg state government estimates that the restoration will cost 1.6 million euros (dlrs 1.58 million). Russia and Germany have accelerated exchanges of looted art under the good relationship formed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Russia has proclaimed art seized from German state ownership as retribution for the damage the Soviet Union suffered in the war, which left some 27 million Soviet citizens dead.
Nida-Ruemelin described the arrival of the panels as a "breakthrough" in bringing back looted art. http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Swiss museum reaches out of court deal on Kandinsky painting
By CLARE NULLIS The Associated Press 7/3/02 12:00 AM
GENEVA (AP) -- One of Switzerland's best known art museums has reached an out-of-court settlement to keep a painting by artist Wassily Kandinsky that had been confiscated by Nazi Germany, officials said Tuesday. The agreement puts an end to a long-running dispute between the Ernst Beyeler Foundation and the heirs of Sophie Lissitzky-Kueppers over the colorful oil painting titled Improvisation Nr. 10, which fueled an international debate about looted art. "Today's positive result would have been welcomed by my mother," said her sole surviving son Jens Lissitzky. "Even then all those years ago, my mother recognized and treasured this picture as a milestone in 20th Century art." In a joint statement, Lissitzky and Beyeler said the painting would continue to remain in the hands of the Beyeler Foundation and its museum in Riehen, on the outskirts of the northern city of Basel. The 1910 painting was part of Lissitzky-Kueppers' collection of some 13 works that she loaned to a German museum in 1926, before she married Russian avant-garde artist El Lissitzky. In 1937, the Nazis confiscated the collection, including the Kandinsky painting, as part of the Nazi `'degenerate art" campaign. The Russian government later exiled Lissitzky-Kueppers to Siberia, where she died in 1978. German art dealer Ferdinand Moeller obtained the painting during the war years and sold it to Swiss collector Beyeler in 1951. The Lissitzky family tried in vain to recover the painting but Beyeler refused, saying he had bought the it legally. One year ago, Lissitzy filed a suit in Basel's city court to force Beyeler's hand. http://www.nj.com/ Date sent: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 15:36:05 +0200 From: The Best In Heritage info@thebestinheritage.com Organization: The Best In Heritage
Subject: Best in Heritage, Dubrovnik, ICOM patronage, UNESCO, invitation
"The Best in Heritage"
Dubrovnik, September 19-21 2002 Under the patronage of ICOM, financed by the Ministry of Culture of Croatia
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Britain's Thatcher 'Beheaded' at Art Gallery
Wed Jul 3, 3:23 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Margaret Thatcher lost her head in a London art gallery on Wednesday when a man decapitated a new statue of Britain's former prime minister, police said. The eight-foot marble likeness - - unveiled only in May and destined eventually to grace the House of Commons -- was left headless after the man walked into the gallery and battered it with a steel scaffolding pole. "A man...has knocked off the head of the statue of Margaret Thatcher. He has been arrested and is now in custody," a City of London police spokeswoman told Reuters. No further details were available about the assailant, who had not yet been charged, police said. The Conservative "Iron Lady," who polarized British politics with a radical, right-wing program in the 1980s, has praised the work by sculptor Neil Simmons. Her spokesman said the 76-year-old former premier would not comment on the attack. A spokesman for the Guildhall Art Gallery, in the British capital's City of London financial district, said the headless statue was swiftly removed from view. A decision on its future would be made after Simmons had taken a look at it. The two-ton statue was intended for the House of Commons but parliamentary rules dictate that it cannot join those of other former leaders until five years after her death. Labour's Tony Banks, a firebrand socialist who heads parliament's works of arts committee, said that although the statue was a controversial commission, acts of vandalism against works of art could never be tolerated. City of London Lord Mayor Michael Oliver said: "Whatever one's views of Baroness Thatcher's politics, she is a unique and important part of the recent history of our country."
Looting remains a threat at site. Archaeological dig remote, police few
By Amy Frazier JOURNAL REPORTER
Looting may have keyed archaeologists in to one of the oldest American Indian archaeological sites in the state, but now Cooleemee officials are questioning how they'll protect the area from further damage. The archaeological site was found in land owned by the Town of Cooleemee on the Rowan County side of the South Yadkin River. It's part of a proposed Riverpark at Cooleemee Falls, an 80-acre $3.5 million scenic park. "If they keep digging, it could really hurt the site," said Aubrey Wensil, a member of town council who has been involved in the river-park project. Problems in protecting the site boil down to the value of the artifacts, the small police force assigned to oversee the site and the site's remote location. Some of the spearhead fragments found are probably 9,000 to 10,000 years old, said Ken Robinson, the director of public archaeology for Wake Forest University. American Indians are thought to have first inhabited North Carolina about 10,000 years ago. Other archaeological finds at the site date from the many of thousands of years that American Indians would have occupied the area. There are also ruins from the 20th-century mill village that thrived when the now-closed Erwin Mills was in full throttle. Unidentified looters overturned dirt earlier this year in an area nearly the size of a football field. Local people had reported finding arrowheads in the area in the past. "This is one of the worst examples of looting I've seen in recent years," Robinson said. Looting is something most archaeologists have had to face. Randolph Daniel, an assistant professor of anthropology at East Carolina University, has studied the Hardaway site in Stanly County, the oldest excavated American Indian site in North Carolina. That archaeological site on the Yadkin River contains artifacts dating back to 8,000 B.C. It was also heavily looted. "Looting has been a problem for decades, but it's gotten worse in the past decade for several reasons. Now you can do better in artifacts than you can on the stock market," he said.
If caught, the Cooleemee looters could face charges of vandalism, trespassing and felony larceny. Chief Ed Drum of the Cooleemee Police Department said that investigators don't have any concrete leads to go on. They had a report of three men visiting the site about the time the looting took place. "Nobody saw anything that could be verified," Drum said. The department's size limits what they can do to prevent further looting, Drum said. He oversees a police force of four men. They rotate on 12-hour shifts. The staff is the bare minimum to provide 24-hour coverage to the area, he said. "We're just so small," Drum said. "We can't be there to stand guard." Instead, the department cruises through several times a day. Members of the Cooleemee Historical Society also go by frequently to catch anyone, Wensil said.
The once-popular fishing and swimming hole that borders the Erwin Mills Dam is now off limits to all but archaeologist and town and park officials. More than 30 signs through the area warn trespassers that their cars may be seized. The site's location has made it difficult to guard, Wensil said, adding that they hope to get several ATVs to monitor the area. It's remote -down a dirt road lined by mobile homes. From there, ATV and walking trails lead down to the banks of the South Yadkin River. Daniel condemned the actions of looters.
"There's a craft to archaeology. If they're manually digging holes, they're losing the context. Other data is in the ground that looters routinely aren't interested in," Daniel said. "Ripping artifacts out of the ground is liking ripping pages out of a book. They lose context and meaning." Wensil had a message for them: "I wish you would bring the stuff back. If you do, there'll be no charges against you, but if we do find out, the charges will be as high as they can be."
• Amy Frazier can be reached at 727-7481 or at afrazier@wsjournal.com http://www.journalnow.com/